Abstract (in English)

In the beginning of the 16th century Jews from Spain (and later on from Portugal)
were forced by the ‘Holy Office of the Inquisition’ to become Christian and abandon
their Judaism. Due to the expansion of the non-Iberian powers in the America’s
by England, France and the Netherlands, many of the Iberian Jewish refugees
fled to opportunities in the New World. The Netherlands started settlements in
Brazil and on the Guyana reef on the so-called Wild Coast of South America. Jews
from Portugal, especially, saw a new future in these regions (being Dutch territories,
in which the Jews experienced a liberal attitude) and settled there.
With the reoccupation of Brazil by the Portuguese in 1654 the Jews left. Since they
were considered as experienced planters and traders in tropical agriculture they
were heartily welcomed by other governing authorities including Suriname. The
Jews were seen as an important economic impulse in the low populated areas of the
interior of the region. The Jews were allowed to organize their own administration;
to have their own courts, schools, cemeteries; build their synagogues; and to worship
on the Saturday (Sabbath). Production in the plantations along the Surinam
River – mostly sugar - formed the economic basis of which the necessary labour
force was supplied by slaves.
At the end of the seventeenth century the economic interest of the Jews started to
move downstream along the Suriname River to Paramaribo and to combine forces
with the Dutch settlers. Jodensavanne started to decline and became deserted. A
fire of 1832 finished of the existing town. the synagogue was repaired. The last
service was held in 1869, where after the building was left and decline started. The
site became overgrown by bush and not until the beginning of the Second World
War, the first cleaning and identification actions were undertaken.
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Financed by the Jewish community of New York, today Jodensavanne has again
been ‘cleaned’ from overgrowth and provided with explanatory signs. Jodensavanne
was placed on the Tentative List of the World Heritage List in 1997 by the
Surinam Government. The nomination file is almost completed; a management
plan is being made up. The back up might not be the specific architecture (all that
rests are archaeological remains) but the remembrance of the start of the Jewish
Diaspora in the America’s.